


and the only way to live it

by irnan



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU - Comicverse
Genre: AU, Gen, preboot fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-03
Updated: 2013-03-03
Packaged: 2017-12-04 05:52:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/707272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irnan/pseuds/irnan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten things about Dick Grayson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and the only way to live it

1) Dick never grows used to the cowl. He wears it for years, and knows he wears it well: but he never grows used to it. (If he ever did, he'd know it was time to lay it aside for good.)  
  
2) He slips up sometimes and thinks of Damian as his son. It always makes him feel disloyal.  
  
3) Barbara kisses him one morning at four a.m. in the Bunker. They've been going over case notes and surveillance vids and police files for seven hours; Dick leans back in his seat and pushes his hands through his hair. It feels dirty under his fingertips, and his eyes are gritty, and he's on the verge of cracking his jaw when he yawns. Babs leans over, catches his chin in her fingers, turns his face to hers, smiles, kisses him.  
 __  
Try again? she says. Her voice is very sure and very calm. This shouldn't feel so easy.  
  
Then again, the fact that it does is what makes him say _yes_.  
  
4) Jason scares the crap out of him. He always has. Not because he's dangerous; Dick knows that they're well-matched; knows he could be just as dangerous if he ever let himself. No, Jason Todd scares his older brother because they're so alike.  
  
5) It's weirdly nice to pick up a newspaper or turn on the news and catch someone referring to _the Wayne siblings_ after Cass comes back to Gotham. Dick is aware this is slightly ridiculous: he doesn't need the Gotham tabloids to vindicate his relationships with his little brothers and his sister. It's not like they need third party confirmation of what they all know is true, but - but it's nice, OK? It just makes him smile. That's all.  
  
6) Dick loved Blüdhaven completely and unapologetically. It was a hellhole, but it was _his_ hellhole. He never does get round to telling Bruce that he understands his attitude to Gotham much better now.  
  
7) Steph Brown has been a constant fixture in his life for almost five years when he offers her the Nightwing costume. First she got sucked in by virtue of being one of the few people Damian trusted; then she and Tim worked their stuff out and became close friends; and of course they both had another singuarly important person in common in the form of Babs. Before Dick knew it, she was as much his little sister as Cass.  
  
8) He'd been rummaging through some old things in the Bunker one day when he came across the suit. Dick had refused flat-out to install any goddamn cases in the Bunker; it was morbid and it was creepy, he had announced, thinking of all the time he knew both Bruce and Tim had spent in front of Jason's. (Dick had always preferred to do his brooding in front of Jay's actual gravestone.) Anyway, as a consequence, he'd folded the Nightwing suit up and put it away and tried not to think about it too much ever since. And now here it is, and perhaps it's Dick's imagination but he thinks it seems a bit faded, which... hurts. Nightwing had been blazing blue for so long because Dick had thought of it as a light in the darkness, an electric glow, comforting, leading the way; a light of hope, far steadier, he'd felt at the time, than Robin's candle-flame bobbing.  
  
He grins. _Now who do I know who fits that description?_  
  
9) Once, in a fit of exasperation with himself, Dick hammered out a schedule for himself that he was resolved to keep to for the rest of his natural life which would ensure that he a) talked to all his friends on a regular basis even now he was stuck in Gotham and the cowl; b) saw his friends on a regular basis even now he was stuck in Gotham and the cowl; c) spent non-work-related time with Barbara; d) spent non-work-related time at Tim and Cass' place and e) made periodic attempts to build up a modicum of trust between himself and Jason, because Jay was his little brother, dammit, even if the murdering little idiot didn't want to acknowledge it, and Dick was the grown-up here and he had a responsibility; the brat needed help.  
  
It was a _really full_ schedule. Damian took one look at it and said, _you have too many friends_.  
  
 _Impossible_ , said Dick.  
  
10) He can, in fact, cook a meal. There is usually a lot of pasta, and microwaving of vegetables, and some sauce out of a jar, but he can feed his siblings a moderately nutritious diet even when Alfred is off with Bruce on the other side of the world, though Damian complains about the pasta and Tim disapproves of Dick's childhood fondness for cauliflower cheese. He can even bake apple pie, though Babs has been known to express a preference for strawberry cheesecake.


End file.
